Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé SEPTEM VERBA & MEMBRA JESU NOSTRI

 

SEPTEM VERBA & MEMBRA JESU NOSTRI

Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER Messe à quatre chœurs

 

MESSE À QUATRE CHOEURS

 

Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé LES PLAISIRS DU LOUVRE

                                                       LES PLAISIRS DU LOUVRE

Sébastien Daucé / Ensemble Correspondances BALLET ROYAL DE LA NUIT

The celebrated Ballet Royal de la Nuit, danced by His Majesty Louis XIV at the age of fifteen, was performed early in 1653 on seven evenings in the Salle du Petit-Bourbon at the Louvre Palace. It enjoyed general success: the aristocracy, present in large numbers, the ambassadors of Europe, but also the bourgeois of the city of Paris acclaimed this lavish spectacle whose enchantments made a lasting impression. To make a lasting impression: that was precisely the grand project of Mazarin, who had just returned to power after the disturbances of the Fronde rebellion. Commissioned by the cardinal in person, this ballet project had been conceived at the highest levels of state as a promotional tool for royal power: the intention was to impose respect on the high-ranking personages of the kingdom, to impress the Parisians who were present, and to disseminate this message elsewhere in the world through the intermediary of the foreign representations. If today’s historians are in agreement that the Ballet Royal de la Nuit was one of the key spectacles of Louis XIV’s reign, it is because it was influential in numerous respects: political, institutional, aesthetic and musical. For the first time in the history of the genre, the libretto is unified and skilfully laid out in four veilles (the watches of the night) and a concluding grand ballet; all the levels of interpretation and all the arts move towards a single goal: the rising of the Sun.

Lucile Richardot / Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé PERPETUAL NIGHT

The circulation of artists and sovereigns between France and England in the seventeenth century resulted in the establishment of highly original genres in the latter country: the first recitatives, large-scale airs from masques and dramatic ‘scenes’ provided fertile ground for experimentation and prepared the way for the birth of semi-opera. Sébastien Daucé explores this English vocal art in a programme tailor-made for one of today’s most fascinating voices: Lucile Richardot, in the exquisite setting provided by Ensemble Correspondances, subtly blends music, love, night and melancholy.

Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé HENRY DU MONT O Mysterium - Motets & Élévations pour la Chapelle de Louis XIV

For twenty years (from 1663 to 1683) Henry Du Mont directed the music of the Sun King’s chapel. For the daily Mass heard there he built up a new musical repertory consisting of motets for full chorus and more intimate pieces for solo voices. The former aimed to transpose to the context of the ‘ordinary’ the format of the large-scale works conceived for extraordinary ceremonies. Sébastien Daucé presents an innovative approach to these ‘grands motets’ that at once links specific musical features with historical data and reveals all their beauties in every detail. (Harmonia Mundi)